This invention relates to receptacles used as site furnishings and a method of manufacturing such receptacles.
Receptacles used as site furnishings include trash receptacles, ash urns for disposing tobacco ash and tobacco products, planters, and the like. They are typically used in amusement parks, sports arenas, airports, picnic grounds and other public venues. These venues often have large numbers of visitors that subject the receptacles to heavy use. The receptacles are also commonly exposed to the weather.
The receptacles must have durable, rugged construction to provide an economically long service life. Yet the appearance of the receptacles is as important as their utilitarian function and construction. The receptacles should enhance the appearance of the venue and work harmoniously as a design element in the overall feel or theme of the landscape architecture or site design.
Conventional receptacles used for site furnishings have a metal frame that may house a replaceable plastic or metal liner. The frame has a base that supports the liner. A cylindrical sidewall extends upwardly above the base to an open upper end. The base typically has a circular or rectangular periphery that defines the cross-sectional shape of the sidewall. Upper and lower end rings or bands surround the upper and lower ends of the sidewall respectively and provide structural reinforcement at the ends of the sidewall.
The sidewall must be strong and durable, and yet have a pleasing appearance. The sidewall is usually fabricated by one of three known methods. Although each method can produce a strong and durable receptacle, each method is limiting in the ornamental designs that can be achieved by such method.
In one method the sidewall is formed from a number of individual, separate structural members. These members may be bars, rods, or plates made from metal, wood, fiberglass or plastic. The individual members extend axially between the end bands and are individually fastened to the end bands. Additional members may extend circumferentially between the axial members.
This method of sidewall construction is labor intensive and is suitable only for relatively simple ornamental designs. Forming and assembling individual members into more complex or more fanciful designs is expensive.
In a second method the sidewall is formed from expanded metal or welded wire mesh. Expanded metal is metal sheet simultaneously slit and stretched into a grid having a non-raveling, open mesh. Welded wire mesh typically has a rectangular mesh pattern. The ornamental design of receptacles formed from expanded metal or wire mesh is dominated by the diamond or rectangular mesh pattern.
A third known method of fabricating the receptacle body is casting the body from aluminum or iron. Patterns and molds are required. Melted aluminum or cast iron is flowed into the molds and cooled to solidify and form the cylinder body. Aluminum is expensive and cast iron receptacles can be heavy. Cast receptacles, therefore, have limited markets.
Thus there is a need for an improved method of fabricating receptacles used as site furnishings. The method should not be labor intensive, nor require the use of expensive or particularly heavy materials. The improved method should make commercially feasible the manufacture of receptacles having unique ornamental designs that are impractical to manufacture using conventional methods.
The invention is directed to an improved receptacle and an improved method for manufacturing a receptacle.
A receptacle having features of the present invention includes a base, a cylindrical or annular sidewall attached to the base and extending above the base to an open upper end, the sidewall and base defining an interior of the receptacle to receive items in the receptacle, the sidewall including one or more sheets or plates spaced along the circumference of the sidewall, and one or more cutouts removed from at least one of the plates to define an ornamental feature in the sidewall, each cutout defined by a cut edge extending along the periphery of the cutout and formed by cutting the cutout from the one or more plates.
In one possible embodiment, the sidewall has a single sheet or plate substantially defining the entire circumference of the sidewall, the plate having adjacent first and second outer edges extending the height of the sidewall and forming a seam extending along the height of the sidewall. Cutouts can be cut entirely within the interior of the plate, or may extend into the interior from an exterior edge of the plate. In possible variant embodiments one or more cutouts can extend across the first and second edges, each cutout having a first cutout portion extending from the first edge into the interior of the plate and a second cutout portion extending from the second edge into the interior of the plate.
In yet another embodiment, the sidewall includes a plurality of adjacent sheets or plates extending about the circumference of the sidewall. Each plate has opposed first and second outer edges adjacent an adjacent plate and extending along the height of the sidewall. The plates can be rigidly connected to an adjacent plate or plates to form a rigid sidewall or, in an alternative embodiment, one plate is pivotally mounted to an adjacent sheet or plate or plate portion to form a door. A cutout can be cut entirely within the interior of a plate or can extend across adjacent plates, a first portion of such cutout in one plate and a second portion of such cutout in the other plate.
Preferably the sheets or plates are solid metal and may be of uniform thickness. However, in other possible embodiments the sheets or plates may be non-solid sheets or plates formed from expanded metal, welded wire and the like, or may be combinations of solid and non-solid sheets or plates.
The following features may be found alone or in combination in yet other embodiments of receptacles made in accordance with the present invention. Each cutout may be defined by a plasma torch-cut edge of the plate. The one or more plates may be cold-formed or cold-rolled from flat plates. The one or more plates may each have a bottom edge portion adjacent the base and an opposite top edge portion, the cutouts not extending into the top or bottom edge portions so as to form continuous top and bottom sidewall edge portions. Top and bottom reinforcing structure, such as end rings or end plates, can be fixedly attached to respective edge sidewall portions. The receptacle may include conventional lids (for example, generally planar plastic or spun metal lids, dome lids, funnel lids or ash tray lids), ash trays, plant pots, and metal or plastic trash bag liners. The receptacles can be free-standing or can be adapted for mounting on a pole or other mounting member in a conventional manner. Adjacent sidewall seams may be welded or mechanically fastened together. The sidewall may be formed from steel or aluminum sheets or plates. The sidewall cross-section may be shaped as a circle, oval, arc, triangle, polygon (for example, square, rectangle, pentagon or hexagon) or some combination of straight and arcuate or curved periphery segments.
In preferred embodiments of the improved receptacle, the sidewall is an exterior sidewall having an inner surface facing the interior of the receptacle and an outer surface facing the outside of the receptacle. An interior sidewall is located in the interior of the exterior sidewall and overlies cutouts in the exterior sidewall. The interior sidewall has an outer surface facing the inner surface of the exterior sidewall, the inner and outer sidewalls closely conforming with each other to enable the sidewalls to be touching or very closely spaced together. The exterior sidewall is preferably finished in a first color and the interior sidewall is preferably finished in one or more contrasting second colors to highlight the portions of the inner sidewall visible through the cutouts in the outer sidewall. The interior sidewall is preferably made from the same material as the exterior sidewall but may have a different thickness or construction (as for example, solid sheet or plate, expanded metal or welded wire) than the exterior sidewall.
Preferably the interior sidewall includes one or more solid sheets or plates that extend continuously about the inner periphery of the exterior sidewall. Such sheets or plates may be cold-formed from flat plates or sheets. In yet other embodiments of the present invention the interior sidewall may include separate and spaced apart members, each member adapted to overlie one or more cutouts. In yet other embodiments the interior sidewall may have cutouts.
A method of manufacturing a receptacle in accordance with the present invention includes the steps of cutting along a periphery of one or more cutout patterns in a sheet or plate to form cutouts in such sheet or plate, forming such sheet to conform with at least a portion of a periphery of a base, and attaching the sheet or plate to the base, the formed sheet extending along and conforming to such base periphery portion.
Preferably the cutting step includes plasma cutting the periphery of the one or more cutout patterns in a metal sheet or plate. The sheet or plate may be aluminum or steel.
Preferably the forming step includes cold forming the sheet or plate from flat sheet or plate.
Preferably the attaching step includes welding the sheet or plate to the base. Preferably the cutting step is performed prior to the forming step.
Preferred embodiments of the inventive method include inputting data representing the periphery of the one or more cutout patterns to a memory device, storing the data, and automatically controlling a cutter in accordance with such data to cut the cutouts. The inputting step may include inputting data representing a number of sets of data representing the periphery of one or more cutout patterns and the storing step may include storing such sets of data, and the method may further include selecting one set of the stored data sets.
In yet other possible embodiments of the inventive method the cutting step includes cutting a first periphery portion of a cutout and cutting a second periphery portion of such cutout spaced from and not contiguous with the first periphery portion. Cutting the first and second periphery portions may include cutting such periphery portions in the same sheet or plate or may comprise cutting the first and second periphery portions in different sheets or plates.
Yet other preferred embodiments of the inventive method may include the steps of cold forming one or more additional sheets or plates, overlying such one or more additional sheets or plates over one or more cutouts on an inner side of the one or more sheets, and coating or treating the one or more one or more of the cutouts with a color or finish contrasting to the color or finish of the exterior sidewall.
A receptacle having features of the present invention has a number of advantages over conventional receptacles used for site furniture. The cutouts can have arbitrary perimeter shapes, providing the receptacle designer great flexibility in developing ornamental designs for the receptacle sidewall.
The following example cutout designs are meant to be illustrative, and not limiting the scope of the invention: letters of the alphabet, the letters perhaps forming words or initials, the words or initials relating to the intended venue or purchaser of the receptacle or identifying the trademark or trade name of the receptacle manufacturer; the outline of logos or trademarks; regular geometric shapes; fanciful shapes, as for example, silhouettes of persons, skylines, or animals; or freeform shapes; or any combinations thereof.
Having an interior sidewall cover the cutout portions of the exterior sidewall creates a xe2x80x9c3-D effectxe2x80x9d that accentuates the cutout portions. The effect can be emphasized by having the interior sidewall exhibit a contrasting finish. The contrasting finish could be formed by a contrasting color, material or construction with respect to the exterior sidewall. Providing a contrasting finish provides even greater ornamental design flexibility for the receptacle designer. For example, the contrasting colors could be the colors associated with a sports team or university (for example, blue and white representing the colors of the Pennsylvania State University), or the cutout could be of an outline of a logo and the interior sidewall overlying the outline could be finished or painted with the logo.
A method of manufacturing a receptacle having features of the present invention has a number of advantages over conventional methods of manufacturing receptacles. Economical, light weight flat metal sheets or plates can be used, reducing material inventory. The sheets or plates can be cold formed to assemble with the base and can be formed to follow base peripheries having varied shapes.
The cutouts can be cut from the sheet or plate with a conventional plasma cutting machine. The cutting machine can be computer numerically controlled and automated, with an accompanying reduction in labor cost. A library of predetermined sets of cutout patterns can be developed and stored. The choice of set can be made at the time of manufacture and it would not be necessary to special order bars, rods or other structural members in advance that can be used only for one or a limited number of ornamental designs. Limited production runs of custom order designs are commercially feasible.
New cutout patterns can be developed quickly in response to market demand or for custom to-order manufacture. Customized cutout patterns enables receptacles to have ornamental designs targeted specifically for a site. For example, receptacles at a football stadium could have the team logo or team name cut in the receptacle sidewall.
Other objects and features of the invention will become apparent as the description proceeds, especially when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings illustrating the invention, of which there are 2 sheets of three embodiments.